Guardians of the Galaxy star Glenn Close weighs in on James Gunn's firing from Vol. 3

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As the petition for Disney to re-hire Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn - after some of his controversial joke tweets were unearthed and spooked the allegedly family-friendly company - passed the 300,000 signature mark, his co-workers continue to chime in with their thoughts.

On the whole, most of those who have spoken up have been on Gunn’s side. Dave Bautista has been a vocal supporter of the director from the beginning, as has Selma Blair, while Chris Pratt and Michael Rooker have both reacted to the firing on social media. Now, Guardians of the Galaxy cameo star Glenn Close has made her statement on the issue.

In an interview with TMZ, Close was brief but pointed. "All I can say is that I had a wonderful time working with him," she said about Gunn. But she wasn't done there. Speaking in more general terms, Close warned of the dangers of social media. "I think it would help if people on social media could envision themselves actually standing across, or sitting across from the people they're talking about," Close said. "They might change what they put on social media."

While Close stays detached enough from the issue at hand to avoid being sucked into the controversy herself (like any veteran in the public relations business), her comments struck at the core problem being dissected: social media posts from when someone did not have an audience stick around and can still be mined when their audience swells to massive scales.

That’s why The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson deleted some of his past tweets - there’s just no point keeping off-the-cuff statements you made to hundreds of people when now you’re curating your thoughts for hundreds of thousands. Thoughtful use of social media (and the social media usage in one’s past) will become more and more important if this targeted digging continues.